/ world today news/ If our managers should be praised for something, it is the consistency with which they pressure the ERPs to enter the right path of good business practices.
With today’s published audit report on the violations in this market segment, it became clear that the suspicions of how CEZ, EVN and Energo Pro are terrorizing consumers are not some empty feelings of the people, but real abuses of the dominant position in the market.
Like midday robbers, the three ERPs violated the laws of the country as many as 2,657 times. They stopped without warning and turned on the power, at a higher voltage, and burned our appliances at home. They read the electricity meters incorrectly and wrote on our bills. They wrote by heart the consumed energy of long-demolished country houses. They recorded the current for periods longer than those established by the State Environmental Protection Agency. They lied like gypsies about the investments that our broken power grid never saw. In general – the natural energy monopolies did whatever they wanted, just to guarantee the 16% profit that the NDSV government guaranteed them with the signing of the privatization contracts.
When we say natural, it should be clear that there is nothing natural about the monopoly position of energy. Simply because they became monopolies in the most unnatural way – as a result of mistaken privatization.
The three ERPs are part of a network monopoly, figuratively speaking – the piggy banks of our electrical energy system. And the Saxe-Coburg-Gothian government, instead of first denationalizing the monopoly, and then looking around to whom to give the “money boxes”, literally enslaved us all to guarantee a 16% rate of profit to their new owners.
And if anyone doubts this, let them go to Google and these figures will almost immediately cross their eyes. Today, electricity for households is on average 17.2 cents – and this price, although regulated by the state, is prohibitive for most Bulgarians. But of all, the idiotic behavior of the energo is the most overwhelming. The other day, a building in the center of the capital was again surprisingly left without electricity, because some employees were rummaging around the substation. No one was warned, the CEZ hotline didn’t even have a clue of what was happening. And to the question – what are you doing, people? – those in red overalls answered – now we’ll let it go, madam, it’s okay.
We didn’t ask them what voltage they were going to run it with, we just turned off all the appliances so they wouldn’t explode.
Not to mention how they hide income behind quite interesting contracts with related parties in their home countries. How they bribed members of the State Energy Commission, as they wrote in the newspapers. And we will not say a word about the main energy engineer in the state – Mitko Karatista. It is clear.
It doesn’t work that way, gentlemen. And with the revocation of the licenses – which most Bulgarians hope will change the current relationship between the energy sector and consumers, it still won’t happen.
First, because the procedure can not only be appealed, but also reach arbitration. And you should have no doubt that the privatization contracts are written in favor of the interest of the private individual, not the state or the consumers. I.e. not only can it take time, but this saga has an unclear ending.
The only solution is based on the audit report to press charges against the management of the ERA if possible. The second step is to end the monopoly position of the three ERPs as soon as possible. The steps are known – buyback of ERP by the state, denationalization of the monopoly, and only then can we look again for new private parties. Changing EPP owners may not only have no positive effect, but may even deepen the energy crisis. In order to have a business, after all, there must be living Bulgarians with a few levs in their pockets to pay the electricity bills. /BGNES
————
Nora Stoichkova, journalist and energetic commentator.
#energy #oppression #View #Info
